Connecting people, version 3.0. Web 3.0 by the way. Since according to a pontiff of the Finnish brand, our smartphones will not last the decade.
Funny prediction from a brand that just launched an ambitious program of leasing to afford his last smartphones. Yet it is that of Nishant Batr, director of strategy and technology for Nokia, in the columns of The Spokesman Review.
Smartphones already has been ?
The interested party slips it bluntly during a guided tour of a Nokia installation in Texas. ” We believe that this device [dit-il en montrant un smartphone] will be replaced by a metaverse experience in the second half of the decade. “, reports the newspaper.
A statement full of confidence for an industry that has so far all but shown signs of uninterrupted growth. If Facebook, since become Meta, is the standard bearer of this promising technology, this year it had to wipe the plaster with excessive haste. Result : a plummeting stock price and some 11,000 employees laid off.
Also, despite the incessant use of the term “metaverse”, very fashionable, few companies have yet proven themselves in this area. A vein, in the eyes of Nokia, which by this declaration wants to make it clear to its investors that it will explore this sector of activity in the years to come. A way to diversify its catalog following a long crossing of the desert, which the Finnish company does not really manage to leave.
Where is Nokia in the smartphone market?
It is all the easier for Nokia to predict the end of smartphones as ubiquitous devices as they currently do not weigh much in a market valued, in 2022, at just under $485 million. According to the firm CounterpointNokia accounts for regarding 1% of the overall market share.
A figure in progress, however. In addition, Nokia would even have carved out a place in the top 5 smartphone vendors in the second quarter of 2022 in no less than 23 countries. The fruits of a strategy that seems to be paying off: that of no longer offering high-end smartphones and tightening its offer around very affordable mobiles, like the Nokia G60or with an interesting price-quality ratio such as the Nokia X30.
The brand, which also continues to offer feature phones – these old school phones, clamshell or physical keyboard – also relies on another vein to differentiate itself: eco-responsibility. Nokia communicates a lot regarding its efforts in terms of packaging, recycling of materials and policy of updating its devices. So many axes of development which, perhaps, will therefore be swept under the carpet in the event of a successful breakthrough in the metaverse. In any case, the brand has revenge to take on a market that has not spared it.